navigating in heterogeneityFor instance, in a research by design course for our master students a few years ago
we worked with the broad theme of space, sound and movement. Traditional recording
techniques were questioned here, and different strategies explored. as a first experiment,
one group put small microphones on their shoes. These close- up recordings were then
confronted with images of what had caught their eye when moving in the space and
presented as a series of sound- vision collages. Through this ‘split’ between sonic and
visual the students could start asking questions on how different spatial sequences were
present, how sound related to materiality, how visual and sonic details interacted, how
border zones were constructed in a continuous public space, etc. They could remodel
the material and present the theme from another, specific but different, approach. The
active, explorative (re-)making generated a spiralling process of new questions- actions
and the emerging contextualization of the problem.
performance continuously produces examples that can reveal new aspects, meaning
and questions. analysis is accomplished through action, by staging, provoking or
changing the situation. The process is continuously challenged by reflection and
interrogation that aims to clarify choices and steps to be taken, with essential research
questions like why, what, how, where, etc., activated in the making- composing and
critical examination of the problem set- up. These questions are not ruling the process
but can trigger further action and clarify where the knowledge process is heading.
performance, and the making, also inverts the hierarchy between theory, method
and action. in the humanities and social sciences, theory often forms a developed
and coherent system of thought which is then applied to a material, or channelled
through established methods with which to approach empirical studies, e.g. as in the
scientific convention of case studies (stake 1995; 2006). in technical science, theory
is rather a hypothesis to be proved or falsified by experiments. art- based research uses
much more flexible interactions between practice and theory as it places the making
at the centre, not as an object for theoretical processing or verification, but as an
investigative, creative and compositional practice that may be put at interplay with
several theoretical frameworks, specific concepts and experimenting activity.
performance is seldom a singular act. its impact in knowledge production often lies
in the series of actions through which something can be discovered and understood.
a situation can be remodelled with the change of components; different approaches
may be tried out from a range of perspectives; a theme can be remodelled in extended
variations of one material or detail; simulations of alternatives can be made. To tackle
the complex or ‘fuzzy’ problem through performance is thus a compositional task that
includes innovative, associative, analytical, deductive and inductive/analogical stages,
in no particular order.
The possibilities in art for multimodal communication and representation in the
situation – with the material, with oneself, within the research team, toward the outside
world and others, etc – break the hegemony of verbal language and construct bridges of
relationships between components in the heterogeneous process. This gradually forms
the constructed ‘context’ that can be communicated and fed back (in text, image,
models or sound), changing but also condensing into assertions about discoveries,
conclusions, new questions and meaning. Thus, the boundaries between representation,
conceptualization, and modelling tools are fluid. They are all parts of performance,
and the shifts between different modes can be utilized to explore situations. The